HOW SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENTS ARE TREATED IN A CLASSROOM:

This was posted (2/14/14) on a Texas teacher chatboard.  I'm guessing there is a lot of truth in this statement.  My advice to parents is to go and see yourself what your child is learning at school.

If I go to all the trouble to gather documentation and jump
through hoops for all those weeks and refer a kid for
testing, and if too many of his ethnicity haven't already
been referred, and he actually DOES get tested and placed,
all that really happens is that a SPED teacher, or more
likely a teaching assistant (who only graduated high
school) will sit beside the kid during class and tell him
the answers. The SPED teacher will monitor his grades and
make sure that his average stays above 70. (If it goes
below, she will ask the mainstream teacher to make up some
bogus assignment that he can make a 100 on to raise the
average to 70, because SPED kids can't fail.) But the truth
is, they don't get any special instruction. They still sit
in the same classes they would have if they weren't SPED,
still do all the same assignments, hear the same lessons,
and are expected to take the same STAAR tests. The only
difference is that they get that assistant to sit by them
and help them read and pass their daily work. What a
horrible disservice to these kids, when they deserve to be
taught at their own level and in ways that they can learn
best. It just makes me fighting mad that they have to take
the same STAAR test as their chronological peers. Isn't
that discrimination?